Some of you have been asking about the panda cub’s vocalizations. You have wondered if he is loud, protesting mother’s grooming or nibbling activities. Some of you have expressed concern about the fact that Bai Yun is so frequently – and so long – away from the den these days. In fact, Bai Yun’s den departures and the cub’s vocal pattern are interrelated. Let me explain…
(more…)

Ron is in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, working with Polar Bears International. Read his previous post, The Polar Bears of Churchill.

This really is shaping up to be an amazing experience. Each day I go out on the Tundra Buggy, run by Frontiers North Adventures. Oh, and by the way, they are giving us a free pass on the Tundra Buggy and a room in the Tundra Lodge. They like what we are doing, trying to bring more attention to the plight of the polar bear. And it’s hard to imagine a species more deserving of attention than polar bears. They are the world’s largest terrestrial carnivores, and they are impressive.
(more…)

We got a very special surprise today at the Desert Tortoise Conservation Center (DTCC). One of our hard-working volunteers, Jim Brinson, was digging up an empty tortoise burrow to sterilize it and get it ready for a newly arriving tortoise when he came across a nest of eggs. Seeing the darkened color of the eggs and knowing that it is too late in the season for the eggs to hatch, he knew that the eggs were not viable (no tortoise babies in the eggs). This happens in nature from time to time. He put the eggs to the side and continued his task of digging in the dirt and sterilizing the burrow. But suddenly, as he was moving the dirt from the location of the burrow to the area beside it, he saw a small object covered in dirt fall from the shovel. He reached down to pick it up and saw that it was a fully formed hatchling!
(more…)

Russ Van Horn is currently in Peru to study Andean (spectacled) bears. Read his previous post, Bear Care in Conservation Terms.

In my last post, I rambled on about why conservation of Andean (or spectacled) bears, and conservation in general, matters, from a scientific viewpoint. This time around I’ll wade into some of the other reasons we work for conservation.

The e-mail that started me on these two posts highlighted a Web site showing some hunters with big game “trophies.” In this case, the trophies were taxidermy mounts of large mammals, mostly carnivores. In the background was a stuffed Andean bear, and the presence of this stuffed bear disturbed the e-mail’s writer and at least some of its readers.
(more…)

I saw a bear. Okay, I saw six. And it only took a couple of hours. I’ve been working with bears for many years now, and this is not what I’m used to. I’ve worked most extensively with giant pandas, and it took me years to see a panda in the wild. Recently, I started working with Andean (or spectacled) bears and, with a lot of sweat and hard work (and the help of an experienced collaborator), managed to see ONE in Peru (see post The Bear Goes Over the Mountain). But here, polar bears are everywhere! For now.

I’m in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, known as the polar bear capital of the world. I’m here as a guest of my friends and collaborators (and supporters!) at Polar Bears International. This is a terrific organization, and they have given me a terrific opportunity. More on that later. The bears are beautiful! I can’t wait to share more about the bears in my next posts.
(more…)

KVBC Channel 3 shot their morning show “Waking Up with the Wagners” live from the Desert Tortoise Conservation Center (DTCC) today! Mojave Max and Ethel (see post Desert Tortoises: Lucy and Ethel) made their final appearances of the season. It’s cold here in the Las Vegas Valley, so they will soon be settling in for their winter brumation.

We also introduced a family of 18 tortoises, ranging from hatchlings to adults, that all came to us through our Desert Tortoise Hotline from the same home and were not in very good health; it gave us the perfect opportunity to encourage people to surrender their pet desert tortoises to the Clark County Desert Tortoise Hotline here in southern Nevada so we can rehabilitate the tortoises and eventually release the healthy ones into the desert to help recover the species. We are confident that all 18 tortoises will be successfully rehabilitated by this time next year, and maybe even sooner.
(more…)

In May of 2008, the polar bear was classified as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. This historic listing was heralded as a timely and necessary protection for this magnificent animal. But as climate change was identified as the primary threat to the persistence of the polar bear, the legislation clearly eliminated any possibility of using the listing to initiate or enforce regulations that would curb greenhouse gas emissions. For those of us involved in polar bear conservation, we were left scratching our heads. How was this listing any more than window dressing if there was no way for it to drive the changes that would promote polar bear conservation?
(more…)

Russ Van Horn is currently in Peru to study Andean (spectacled) bears. Read his previous post, Andean Bears and Cameras.

An e-mail was posted recently on the Andean bear e-mail network that got me thinking about the question “Why do we care about Andean bears?” I realized that I was not only thinking about this question, but also pondering “Why do we care about the conservation of nature?” I’m not sure I can clearly answer these questions, and I’m sure I won’t say anything that hasn’t been said before by someone else, but here goes. In this post I’ll focus on the reasons for (bear) conservation presented from a scientific viewpoint, but there are other reasons for caring about conservation. I’ll write about those in my next post.
(more…)

Last week we released the second group of 50 kangaroo rats (see previous post, Kangaroo Rats Keep Us Hopping). We placed sand scented with mountain lion pee at scent stations for 25 of them. The other 25 were among sand piles wet with water. We are using remote cameras to take still and video images of any predators that visit the site.
(more…)

San Diego Zoo researchers are in Peru to study Andean (or spectacled) bears. Read a previous post, To See A Bear.

We awake in the predawn twilight, rouse ourselves out of our sleeping bags, down some coffee, and head for the viewpoint, hoping to spot last night’s bear making the ascent back up from the waterhole. José begins to gesticulate wildly, pointing to a dark form moving slowly up the face of the cliff.
(more…)